The only thing more terrifying than playing against Peyton Manning is playing with him.

Let's be clear: Players love everything that comes with playing with Manning. He's a great quarterback and by all accounts a fine fellow. Teammates get Super Bowl appearances, eye-popping statistics and big contracts out of playing with him.

There's only one problem. He's kind of annoying.

Walking by Manning in Denver's locker room is a source of anxiety for all Broncos players, they say. Running back Ronnie Hillman said he tenses up when he brushes past him. This is because Manning is known to give passersby a pop quiz about Denver's upcoming opponent. Backup quarterback Zac Dysert said the questions Manning asks him usually focus on where the ball should go against a particular coverage. It is "definitely easy to be scared" of Manning, he said.

"It seems like he's going about his business, and then all of a sudden he'll stop and ask a question," said guard Louis Vasquez. "Usually when guys are in the locker room, it's time to take a break, but his mind's always going."

Scenes like these are common in Denver since Manning joined the team in 2012. This season, at age 37, Manning threw for the most yards in NFL history with 5,477 yards. He did it with a mixture of natural talent and preparation. Lots of preparation.

"I don't think Denver had any idea of what you get in Peyton Manning. You have to stimulate him mentally or you'll lose him," said former NFL quarterback Rich Gannon, now an analyst for SiriusXM Radio. "Equipment guys, trainers, video guys, coaches—everyone has to be on edge."

The practice field is Manning's main laboratory for overbearing behavior. Manning often doesn't wait for the Broncos' assistant coaches to correct the players' mistakes—and that doesn't apply to just the offense.

Safety David Bruton said Manning can get irked when a special-teams player drops a punt on another field, off in the distance. "Or even if we miss blocks during the kicking phase of practice," Bruton said. Manning won't even tolerate mistakes that fail to take advantage of his mistakes: Bruton said the quarterback will get perturbed if a defensive back fails to catch Manning's own potential interception.

"The important thing to remember is that he's not mad at you. He just gets frustrated," Hillman said. "He's trying to make us pay attention to details."

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Gannon, who as a CBS analyst gets to watch practices, said Manning runs the best Friday practices he has seen. (In the NFL, Friday is typically the last practice day before the game, and the most competitive one.) In one practice Gannon saw earlier in Manning's career, a pass hit a receiver in the chest. Manning yelled, "We do not drop balls on Friday!" At another practice, a player ran the wrong depth on a pass route. On the way back to the locker room, Manning rushed over to the receiver to address the mistake before a coach could.

"A coach was probably sitting right there, but at the end of the day, who is steering the ship? It's Peyton," Gannon said.

At practice, the Broncos have a drill in which, as an experiment, players will switch to positions they don't ever play. On one occasion, tight end Jacob Tamme was playing a deep wide receiver, which a blocking tight end like Tamme wouldn't dream of playing. Before the play, Manning saw a coverage from Denver's defense and adjusted Tamme's route. Tamme failed to execute the route perfectly. Manning was angry. Tamme replied, "I haven't run a route like that in six years." Manning didn't accept the excuse.

"There was a quick burst of correction," Tamme said, laughing, "and then it was onto the next play."

Most NFL teams watch their opponents' three previous games to get a handle on their tendencies. That isn't quite enough for Manning, especially in the playoffs. One coach said that before the team's AFC Championship Game against the New England Patriots this month, Manning joined the coaching staff to watch video. They kept watching games until they figured there were no more to watch. So Manning said they should watch a Patriots-Rams game—the Patriots-Rams Super Bowl from 12 years ago.

Manning's devotion to film study and game-plan ideas keeps the rest of the team up at night. He records voice memos with stray thoughts and sends them to coaches late into the night so everything can be sorted out early in the morning. "He's really taking advantage of modern technology," said quarterbacks coach Greg Knapp. "You'll get a message that says, 'Let's do this drill tomorrow; I think my left foot needs to open up more.' I have my own ideas that he wants to do but he'll give me that and I'll say 'Good idea!"'

Manning's use of modern technology is legendary. Last month, a photo of Manning multitasking went viral. He was watching plays on his iPad…while soaking his ankle in a cold tub…with a helmet on. Manning was injured that day, so he listened to the radio of the play calls in his helmet headset while practice went on without him. He refused, teammates say, to be out of the loop for a second.

Dave Magazu, Denver's offensive line coach, said Manning makes everyone smarter with his challenges. He recalled a game when the opposition's defensive front was giving the Broncos a problematic formation. "So I said, if they give us this look again, check [change the play] to this," Magazu said. "The look comes back, we check to it, we screw the whole thing up."

Manning bided his time before strolling over to Magazu and sarcastically saying "nice check."

Magazu said he had no choice but to yell at his offensive line for putting him in a bind with Manning.

"You have to stimulate him mentally or you'll lose him" - kind of reminds me of Valerie Jarrett talking about Obama. Manning's performance today in the Superbowl kind of reminds me of Obama's presidency.

I teach math and science and I tell the kids to focus for success! Winners focus and time manage better than anyone around them. That is why Manning is an award winning QB and the guy writing this article is squeaking about nothing.

I listen to John Madden's weekday podcast and he made the same observation months ago. He put it this way: If Peyton Manning didn't win so much, people wouldn't tolerate him because he can be a pain in the neck. He did not say it in a way that put Manning down. It was just an observation about the way he is.

When did we descend as a society to the point whereby the WSJ, million-dollar a year football players, and WSJ's readers consider a man (Peyton Manning) who actually works to earn his mega salary as "Mr. Annoying"?

Wait... so being one of the best performers at what you do and expecting the others around you (who are paid quite handsomely to do their jobs, by the way) to perform at their best is now "annoying" in the eyes of a newspaper that predominantly supports capitalism? I mean, I get it if the guy were a second-rate player, but if he demands the same level out of himself that he does others (and I cannot imagine he doesn't), then I say step up. It's easy to enjoy the Super Bowl rings, but, like anything else worth having, those come with a price. This is the price. It's a hypocrite that I find problematic; based on his performance over the past decade and a half, I'd say that he's far from, at least when it comes to playing football.

This is what's called the "correlation-causation" error. There is a correlation between Manning's hyper-detail mania, but not necessarily a causation--that's impossible to prove. The fact is, Manning is a disagreeable person who just happens to be a very good football player. No one likes an over-bearling know-it-all, Peyton Manning included. The praise will stop as soon as the results do.

He is great because he is like having one of the greatest offensive/defensive coordinators also be the quarterback on the field. Nobody is more a student and constantly learning about the game than Peyton Manning, his generalship and leadership on the field is legendary!

Not that I'm a football fan ('cause I'm not), but what is happening here is that Manning appears to be a perfectionist professional and all the mentally lazy folks around him find him "annoying." He's like the smart kid in class that always raises his hand at the teacher's questions and always answers correctly. Thank you, the American psyche, for pounding on the concept of personal excellence.

After reading the article, oh how I long for those days of the Bickering Bills. Jim Kelly had the same attributes and its called leadership. Obviously, the Broncos are Manning's team, just like the Bills were Kelly's team. I know the Bills lost 4 straight Super Bowls, but the memories of those years far outweigh those 4 losses. In addition, my brother and I went in on a $100 square for the game at a local bar. The final score paid $6000 to the winner. We had NFL 0 and AFL 3, the final score ended up being Dallas 30 and Buffalo 13 and we divided the 6 grand. I have never played another Super Bowl square since then. That was the Bills last trip to the Super Bowl, and the city of Buffalo has not tasted the playoffs since the Music City Miracle in Tennessee. Go Broncos!

After watching the Browns struggle in a futile attempt to reach mediocrity for 15 years, I'll take a gifted but over bearing QB any day compared to the likes of overpaid/under talented QB/Coaches that we've seen in the time frame.Attention to detail is what wins in this league--as well as talent; if you have a super start with an Uber work ethic, it can't help but trickle down to the all the players on the squad--not a bad thing.

In this case "well" is defined as money making ability. Ridiculous. No judge (even one in MA or CA do you live there?) would award a spouse with such a dominant financial profile (Gisele has earned over $30M annually for years) any advantage over a pauper like her spouse Tom. In fact, what you say is exactly true if the Manning's were to divorce. No wonder you think Peyton is better than Tom you've got that backwards too.

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